Future-Ready Your Career Before Layoffs Hit

Meg Smith (00:12)
Hello and welcome back to the AI Advantage. I'm Meg Smith. I'm never going to not feel a bit awkward saying that I think. I hope maybe next season I will be a bit more confident. I'm here with Mark Smith, my co-host, and today is the last episode of our first season of the AI Advantage show. And as you can see, we're a little festive today.

So today's episode is going to be a little bit different in the... Stop laughing at me. 14 episodes in and I'm still awkward. That's okay. This has been so fun for me. So this is being all about the skills that we think that every person needs to develop to really thrive in this AI enabled world.

Γüô so if you are just joining us now, you can go back and listen to those episodes. Γüô you know, there's one per skill, so you don't have to listen to them in order. and I really hope they helpful. And if they are helpful, Γüô send us a message. Cause everyone who has sent us a message has really given us, you know, energy and encouragement in this process. For me, I fumble my way through. I'm just learning this, Γüô as a brand new podcast host. but.

I know for Mark as well, it gives you energy, right? Even though you've been doing this for like seven years.

Mark Smith (01:28)
totally absolutely does.

Meg Smith (01:30)
So today's episode is going to be about what should you do if you lose your job? So Mark, do you want to talk a little bit about why that's been percolating in your head over the last little while?

Mark Smith (01:43)
Yeah, so I've been listening to an audiobook recently and it was recorded in 1956 so it's not modern by any stretch but it's one of the books that I'm going back to that was impactful probably 30 years ago in my career and I'm gonna play you a sound bite from this and the book

as I said was first published in 1956 it was called The Strangest Secret. Don't get it confused with more modern books you know that has the word secret in the title but it was by a gentleman called Earl Nightingale he has since passed and his wife though is still alive

He died in 19... What did say? 1989 he died. But he survived Pearl Harbor, little fun fact about him. And in his career, he recorded over 7,000 audio shows across a 40 year career. And if I was to distill down his one thing, and even he said this himself, his core thing is we become what we think about.

That was it. We become what we think about. And so what's that? Six words. Pretty concise way to sum up his entire body of works. But I was listening to this and I'll actually play it for you. And then let's have a chat about it.

Meg Smith (03:12)
Sounds good.

Mark Smith (05:33)
what I was listening to this week and it struck me, though that was recorded as an, it was first authored sorry, that's a more recent recording but it was authored

the book a long time ago and his updated content was just before he died he did a What's how does this story his original story apply in a modern world and this was in the 80s? and and so that reference and What struck me is that I feel that we're on the The start and some of us, you know based on what's happened already in 2025 have gone through this

where the job security is not there like it might have, well, maybe it wasn't even in the past. But we have this illusion of safety and protection and job security and that we are owed something by the organization that employs us. And as we go on into 2026, we are going to see more and more advancements in this.

in AI and I think it's going to be able to do a lot more of what you and I do and take for granted as skills that we have earned over our career, but it will take those over. You know, just this morning I was out with my mower setting it up to mow again, which is, know, a robotic mower, a motion luber, 5,000 at all wheel drive and

For the last two and a half years now, it has mowed my lawns. When I left high school, my first career for three years was mowing lawns. Right, that was my full time job, mowing lawns and, well, I was a groundskeeper, so I did more than just mow lawns, but that was my job, right? And now we have technology replacing the need to do that. Yes, I still have to set it off on its job and every now and then I have to...

kick its butt if it has an error. But it'll work now for the next 48 hours maintaining my property in pristine condition. And that's not me out there working and doing that anymore. And I thought about, you know, what he said there is that in your work life, you're 16 hours a day, forget about sleeping, but there's additional time.

that you have to invest in yourself. And we've talked a lot about one hour a day of new skill development in an area that you like, that is, you know, that you're interested in. But I think there is a coming risk of us to bury our head in the sand and think that the way we work is going to be there forever, or even the companies that we work for. I honestly believe that there's going to be a scenario where entire companies that have been around for

Decades are going to disappear They're not going to exist anymore. So it might be about nothing you heard of the Navy out there It was nothing that the individual did but times are changing markets are shifting you know if you've looked at global politics in the last three months and The impact that China manufacturing for example is having on the world is absolutely phenomenal

the rise of the car manufacturing industry out of China has eclipsed every other automotive industry globally. so therefore, as plants and stuff and other geographies get shut down, people are going to be impacted not because you weren't doing a good job. Right. It's just that the market and the world has shifted. And now we're in this age where and we talk about the AI advantage and the need to be

able to work and understand how to do whatever we're going to do in the future with AI alongside. How do we maximize our ability to work and the skills that we need to be effective in an AI dominated world?

Meg Smith (09:40)
think for me, when I listen to it as well, I come back to that piece of advice we talk about a lot. particularly, know it's in the 90 day mentoring challenge, Mark, you open up with saying, you know, this is not, not everything you're going to hear is going to feel like it's for you. Some of it you can, dismiss. I think your phrase you use is, know, when you're eating a piece of chicken, you eat the meat and you spit out the bones. you don't eat the bones. So I will do my dad did. Γüô but.

You know, like you take what's good for you and then you leave the rest. Now I could hear in that particular sound clip some stuff that wasn't for me, right? And I do see this a bit in hustle culture these days in this like, you know, real like, it's almost parody now, isn't it? This like, have to do the most you can with every single moment of your every single day, productivity, productivity, productivity. 

He kind of goes 16 hours when you're not working and straight away I'm like, well, I'm always working. I have kids. So the not working at work is then like, you know, working in other stuff. And that's true. Like, that's why I love hearing the perspectives as well from people who have a life like mine to then go, but hey, I still found the hour or I found 10 minutes to be honest, to start with. I didn't lose my job, but my job was no longer.

viable for me and our life when we went after having our second child and it was podcasts for me. had a 10 or 15 minute drive to drop off to daycare my eldest while I still had my baby at home with me while you were working. Right. And so it was in that 10 minute drive there and back listening to podcasts that helped me fire.

a new way of thinking. heard, I can still remember this. I heard some professors being interviewed by Brene Brown in her AI series, and they wrote a book called Digital Literacy. It was about digital literacy and why we all need to go, you know, we, that we can aim for not necessarily being the most technical person in the room, but being one level more technical than we are.

And it was listening to that conversation that then sent me off to read that book that, you know, and that had gone from like, hadn't listened to anything to do with work. I hadn't done any kind of self-directed learning for a long time before that. that, that finding that 10 minutes became the unlock for me to now be someone that two years later, I've got a long list of books I want to read and I've got a long list of learning I want to do. So I just wanted to share that.

because someone might be listening to that and go, I just can't take anything from that because I can't see how I could find that time. But maybe you can find, even if you can't find it now, maybe you can find 10 minutes to start with. And then you might be able to set the ball rolling. What's that thing you always say about objects in motion that I always misquote?

Mark Smith (12:28)
It's easier to move an object in motion than a static object.

Meg Smith (12:32)
Yeah, so you just got to get the ball rolling, right?

Mark Smith (12:35)
It's easy to change its direction. Yeah, so you've to get going. You've got to make the choice. What I, you know, took away for it. He said 16 hours. He's not saying use all that 16 hours, right? Use whatever you can. It could be an hour, could be 20 minutes, could be 10. But don't blame

your employer or anybody else if all of a sudden there's shifting sands in the world and you have chosen not to do anything about it or wait till it strikes before you do anything. I've noticed two phenomena that have happened over the last three years in observing LinkedIn. Number one, when people got laid off at Google in bulk,

The first time they were on LinkedIn was because they got laid off. They had never built a network, a relationship environment, a support structure of other people that knew their skills until the day they lost their job. And that was shocking to me because coming from the Microsoft side of the universe, always saw Microsoft, well, I tended to always see Microsoft folks on LinkedIn sharing their world, you know, with them. And so then

They also, you know, we've seen earlier this year, a lot of Microsoft folks get laid off around the world. And once again, all these people come on and they're like, Oh, heck, I need to brush up my LinkedIn. need to put the word out there, you know, but, know.

paper came out of Stanford years ago and it talks about the strength of weak ties and the importance of having a network. And I'm not even talking about skills here now. I'm just talking about having a weak tie network and a network of people that know you and know what you do and what your skills are because that network, they don't have to be your best friends. That's the whole concept of weak ties is that out of that becomes the ability

to connect you to potentially your next opportunity. And so I liked the concept there of, you have a plan A, a plan B and a plan C? If this should happen to you next year in 2026, will you be in panic mode because it took you by surprise or will you have a plan A, B or C that you can potentially switch to and go, all righty, I'm ready for this.

Meg Smith (15:02)
And I was thinking about like practically what are some of the things that I did, right? Cause I did this, as I say, two years ago or a version of it. And I also just want to say like from friends of ours that have been laid off and been through layoffs, expect in that plan to need a little bit of time because these emotions to ride out in that even when you know that it was not a decision, I think it was not a decision made by a person sometimes.

Most often it's now seems to be made by software. But regardless of whether you think it was a targeted decision or something made, they still gonna stir an emotion in you and you're gonna ask yourself, why me? Why was I laid off? Some people we've spoken with and mentored have said, why was I laid off again? Because again, by no fault of their own, they had ended up in a system that that decision was made.

So then the depths of resilience, which we spoke about last week, you're going to need to be able to draw on those in that time. There's no way to skip that step. But there are also practical things that I remember doing that helped me feel more in control. So one of them was to look at our personal finances and cut the fat. So to be able to go to take some of the pressure off is the, what can we do to lower

the fixed outgoings every month as much as we can because then suddenly my replacement that I was aiming for was less about replacing my ego, my vanity that I had from my corporate salary to practically then in this scenario of moving to being independent and doing work for myself, what did I need to bring in was as small as possible. Because then that allowed me time to build it up over time. It was one thing I was thinking about practically that really helped.

Mark Smith (16:50)
Yeah, and mean, we're not, we really cut the fat, right? Between five and 10K, we cut the fat per month of our outgoings. And that was absolutely possible to do that. What else, what else,

Meg Smith (17:01)
well, I can remember us doing this together, was sitting down and doing StrengthsFinder. Now, and Mark in my scenario, he was working for IBM and had always, you he'd always had plan A and B in terms of having some side work and side hustles and bits and pieces going on. I had really just had my one job. I'd had my Google job. So for me, trying to figure out how to transfer my or translate my skills, the thing I started with was StrengthsFinder.

Now, strengths finder, had been something I had done at work. you had also told me about it. I know it's been a sort of core part of the 90 day mentoring challenge since day one in 2018. And so that's by Clifton and it's a, Γüô an online survey you can do based on research. I think there are other versions of it, but that one is really great. It's really robust. comes out with this rubric of basically, based on what you put in this picture of.

what you're good at and then being able to understand how to develop those strengths further, how to find opportunities that allow you to play to your strengths. And for me, like I've got them written on a Post-it note in front of me right now, because going back to those strengths at the point where I was, you know, the optimist looks at the situation I was in and goes, you could do anything. What do you want to do? So the strengths,

for me gave the constraints or the context. you know, for me it was, and I actually, my other tip on that is if you do Strengths Finder, when you get your strengths out, like they have come up with, I think it's like 36 different characteristics and they have names for them, like Maximizer and like all these things that I would read my five and I wouldn't remember what they meant. It's gonna be like Meg's a Maximizer. I'm like, well, what is that? That is, you know, that I'm,

I'm going for excellence, not average. I'm building great relationships. I'm always looking for the positive and I'm really interested in what makes each person unique. Like, so those are the things that I then start to go, okay, well what work can I do or what roles might I be a good fit for that allows me to play to those strengths.

Mark Smith (19:11)
Yeah and see this even Meg creates post-it notes for me of my strengths. Γüô For example, hey they're really good. is inspired by the future and what could be and he energizes others and so for me in Clifton's that was called a futurist but

Meg Smith (19:17)
Well we forget them, right? We forget them.

Mark Smith (19:34)
I love the way Meg has converted this into something that really is sticky for me. Mark takes ideas and turns them into actions. In other words, I build systems and I look at a concept and I go, okay, how do we systemize it? How do we scale it? And there's others. And so really important to take assessment of what it is, but also a key thing Meg said there, I always had side hustles. I've always for over 10 years had side hustles happening.

things that I was doing. I work for a range of companies around the world and have done over time. I do one-on-one coaching for people and that is paid. Coaching slash personal mentoring, one-on-one type mentoring that I do. And I've done these things for years. it's as in, so I've always...

I've never feared losing in fact, know, in leaving IBM. It was two years ago from the Canadian Power Platform Summit because I was in the hotel room there in Vancouver when I formally resigned at IBM, which by the way, was the second time I resigned from IBM because I did it three months earlier and they convinced me to stay on for a little period longer.

I've always been very pro setting my destiny. I tend to be the one that leaves the company rather than the company leaves me. Same with Australia with SMS. I chose to leave that company because I'm always looking at and I suppose even recently I left a company this year.

And fundamentally for me outside of yes, what AI is going to do for me, if I'm not getting joy in what I'm doing, if I'm not feeling like pumped about what I'm doing or who I'm working for, I can't abide it. I can't work for organizations. What's that?

Meg Smith (21:22)
I'm just laughing. Cause

it's the same as if you get a present that you don't love, you can't fake it. Like it's so funny because it's good because you know that when you get a reaction from Mark, it is a genuine, like positive effusive reaction. He can't fake it. It's not just he won't, but he can't.

Mark Smith (21:29)
Yeah. That's me as you can see has learned that one from experience.

Meg Smith (21:48)
Right? Like that you go, sometimes like in your scenario, it starts to erode at you if you're not going to take a proactive action. And then I was talking with someone last week and we were talking about how sometimes you can do the work or you can think I might be happier elsewhere, but it's the right thing to stay. But if you're making an empowered decision to stay, then staying feels different.

It doesn't mean to mean that like it doesn't, the company doesn't have to change. It's kind of what I took when I listened to that clip as well to say, yes, sure. The company doesn't owe us anything, but also then we need to make sure that we are giving exactly what we need to, to fulfill our responsibilities and that agreement we've made to take the salary and do the job, but not more than.

Mark Smith (22:25)
Yeah.

Meg Smith (22:36)
So this is something I learned while I was at Google and Google have very onerous interview processes. I think they've kind of tried to simplify them lately, but it was kind of a known thing that if you were going to interview at Google, you needed to be prepared to do four interviews at least. one of the ways that I kind of learned to hack interviews, because I was hired in

six different roles in three different countries over the time that I was there, right? So I did a lot of interviews. And then I also did interview training. So I became an interviewer. And what I learned is that you need to take the job description for the job that you're going for and identify what are the characteristics or the skills they are evaluating the person that they are interviewing for. Now at Google, these also fell into four buckets, which they...

would call general cognitive ability. So how do you think? Role related knowledge. So what do you have experience in certification wise that relates to the specific role?

leadership, because that was one of the characteristics they wanted everyone in their workforce to have. And then the last one was Google-iness, which is basically cultural fit. How do you fit within this organization?

now you can even use AI to say, Hey, this is the job description I'm going for. Do deep research to find out Γüô what values and how does this company hire? What, what traits are they looking for so that you can then surface or analyze what are the things I need to write for? So then I would take each of those things, whether it's leadership or the role related knowledge I might break down.

and I would write them on the top of a piece of paper on my notebook, and then I would write situation, behaviour, impact. So SBI. And I'm only looking for one sentence for each.

I helped lead the team that were going to, you know, organize whatever their day would look like, or whatever it is that you did. That's your behavior. And then the impact of that is what is the outcome of the work that you did? So, you know, the approval ratings were five out of five stars, or I had this anecdotal feedback from this particular person.

That's where you get your numbers or if you don't have numbers, you get those quotes and qualitative feedback. And the process of that as my preparation for an interview, the main thing is that you've sat down and you've pen and papered those stories so that you really own them and they roll off your tongue and you believe them rather than sitting there in that moment and going blank, because that's what my mind does if I haven't done that work.

Mark Smith (25:05)
Awesome well that wraps up our series for the year. Remember you can subscribe on either Spotify or YouTube to see the video version of this if you're listening to it on audio. The video versions are there. Share it with a friend or colleague. We'll be back in the new year with a new series. Remember join the WhatsApp group if you want. The QR code is on screen or you can find links to that in the show notes.

Meg Smith (25:06)
Well, more about how been here.

Mark Smith (25:32)
Have an amazing season, Christmas season ahead. And hopefully you're safe and that the time spent with your family over this period is filled with love.